Yes, I know it's been some time since I've put a fresh blog up, but I promise to not let it go as long as it has been in between. This entry is going to be covering the $8,000 first time homebuyer credit being offered as in incentive to first time homebuyers.

In an effort to boost some sales, and reach out to all the first time homebuyers who are on the fence deciding if they want to take the plunge and purchase, The Government is offering a no strings attached 8000 credit for first time homebuyers! There are some stipulations that must be met for one to be eligible for the first time homebuyer credit.

The biggest hurdle to overcome is that the potential first time homebuyer is only labeled a first time buyer if they have not held ownership in the last 3 years. The first time homebuyer must also purchase by the end of December 2009. Once that criteria has been met, an $8000 credit will be issued to the first time homebuyer who made the purchase. It's NOT a tax cut; it is a TRUE credit! What's even better is that after securing the home, it's even possible to get the first time homebuyer credit before next years taxes! For Full Details please consult your CPA, but an amended return can be filed, and the credit can be taken advantage of before the typical 2009 tax season.

This is a HUGE advantage to everyone who has been on the fence about buying... $8000 dollars on top of the other great tax benefits, and the best part; You'd have your own home. Couple that with the AMAZING interest rates being offered right now, and the rock bottom price of housing. Any of these three components on their own (First Time homebuyer credit, amazing interest rates, and low low prices) are strong on their own. In tandem these three are an Epic force.

This has been a very sought after question as of late, so I thought I would delve into it and give everyone THE ONLY CERTAIN THING ABOUT TIME FRAMES REGARDING BANK OWNED REOS AND SHORT SALES; UNCERTAINTY!
There are simply too many people, eyes, hands, feet, opinions, number crunches, hours, gallons of coffee, and sugar brimming snacks that go into distressed properties to EVER ascertain a formula for the exact timing. You can get good approximations and get it close… but there are just too many factors that have to all go right to get it done lightning quick and accurate; Murphy’s law has a field day with this.

Short sales for example have to first be crunched and assessed by the listing agent to get a good idea to market the house for. Once a good figure has been sought out, then the short sale package is put together (If buying a car is the camelback mountain of paperwork mountain ranges; a short sale is the Himalayas, rockies and Mt. Fuji. Letters of explanation, a plead for financial amnesty, statements, calculation explanation, assessments, BPOs. . . Let’s just say a small forest is razed to make it happen. So within all this, in itself… there is a recipe for a long and unknown time period. Once the package is in… the lender themselves have to pick it apart, order some BPO’s, crunch numbers… and determine how much Mortgage insurance will cover, and how much they will eat, what they need to net… Is it cheaper than a full blown foreclosure, etc. Once you pass all of those landmines, and your offer has been beaten, burned and bloodied… then it gets carted off to the investors (usually Fannie) to get the short sale approval letter… it’s the secondary market that’s taking the shot. Then once you get that sought after letter… THEN, and ONLY then… you start your regular escrow time periods. Day 0 of Inspection and COE period. Whew! So after all that waiting, you have your regular closing time to deal with; Loan documents to get in, conditions to be cleared, inspection, appraisals, etc. 30 days on the average. Does this give you an idea why it’s hard to nail down a time frame?

Hello everyone! Whew, went on a small blog hiatus there. Now im recharged and ready to go! New subject today is the power of Short sales, On the listing side!

Now I already have a pretty detailed section on short sales on my main page curtailing how they work out, what is required, etc. etc. (some of which has already changed. FOR EXAMPLE. . . now they're starting to look at doing closing costs) yet they are more concerned with their net, so sometimes you have to raise the price to accomodate your closing costs. (for example, house is listed for 100000. You want three percent concessions. That's 3000. So a lot of times the bank would like to see an offer of 103,000 with 3% concessions) Anyway, the point here is that if you are in a bind and trying to avoid foreclosures (IE in the preforeclosure status), The Short Sale is very powerful! REO's are fantastic buying side, but everyone of those REO's/Lender Owned properties all had someone take a foreclosure sized bite out of their credit report.
On Short sales this is a situation where WHO you have listing the property is super important. ASK! are you familiar with short sales? Agents are starting to get a better handle on short sales and REOs as a whole, but a lot are lazy. They'll list them with no pictures, no descriptions on them (no personal touches, or detailed descriptions; pretty weak agency in my opinion.) Same goes for REO Agents, but that's a story for another day. Short sales, like REOs and every other listing require good exposure if you want to help pull the home owner out of their potential wreckage. They are a long winded procedure that ends up being a arduous, overwhelming and downright infuriating. . . YET with the proper agent it can be a great experience.

Hello all, I am back, after a short hiatus, I am ready to delve back into these issues head first.
President Bush is lated to sign a new Housing Rescue Bill which will affect a lot of standards and norms we have in our current market. There are some good and really bad results from this new Housing Bill. Im going to delve into these now. Let's start off first with the bad.

1) Fha Limits will change.Where as currently they are lending 97% LTV, it's going to change to 96.5% LTV. Let me explain how this works out. LTV is Loan to Value, and that is the amount of the loan you can receive financing for. For example, if you have a $200,000 house you are going to purchase via FHA, Currently they only loan 97% LTV, which means they will give you 97% of the money needed to purchase that real estate. So the remaining 3% is your responsibility as downpayment. In this situation 3% of $200,000 is $6,000. So you would need to come up with $6,000 out of pocket. Well when the housing bill goes into effect *it's estimated to be in full swing October 1st 2008* the New LTV will be 96.5% Meaning that you, the borrower, will have to come up with not 3% but 3.5% of the purchase price. So on our $200,000 example we had from before, you would need to come up with $7,000 now, instead of $6,000! This is a bit of a problem, but there is something else that is being taken away which would constitute needing to get out there and buy up some REO's, short sales, and other properties quickly.

Ok, here is my new blog, and in this one, I'm going to cover easier ways to obtain Real Estate via savvy means of purchase. Yes it is true, in the wake of all the distressed properties (Bank REO's and Short Sales) The tides have shifted to support a buyer's market and prices have taken a steep descent. Even just four months ago. . . CMA's were not Including distressed sales to help evaluate a rough value of property. . . yet as the months progressed, it was evident that "Regular sales" were quickly being replaced by statistics usurped from Short Sales and REO's... What's this mean? Basically that all the Focus on Short Sales and Bank REO's have helped lower market value of homes. Bad news for sellers, but EXCELLENT news for buyers. and with the large inventory of homes, there is no shortage for buyers. ; awaiting the rock bottom deal is not going to take a lot of time. Along with the sliding prices *which appears to be slowing...* there are "incentives" being negotiated on behalf of the buyer to sweeten their purchase. These can include having all closing costs paid for, and even getting the down payment covered.

This is how it is possible for someone to get into a house with $0 closing costs! Now, there are going to be some items that do need to be purchased *Inspections* and money that has to be "fronted" *earnest money*. If everything goes clean in the transaction, and all closing costs are accounted for and covered by the seller, you will receive a refund of your earnest money come Close of Escrow. . .

Hello all, welcome to blog number 4! *whoo hoo im climbing up the ranks here! Today im going to tackle Short Sales offers, Bank REO offers, What you should weigh when offering, and terrible listing agents and their ridiculous methods.

Ok first off I will dive into Short Sales and REO properties. REO's are taking off! They are RED HOT right now! Just recently I put an offer in on one for a client; We were the first one's in the house, and had an offer in writin and faxed over when the listing was only 14 hours old! well by hour 48 the listing agent had 8 offers! REO's are flying off the shelves! Well considering what you offer is a humongous factor now. Yes, it IS a buyer's market, but with all these REOs and Short Sales providing some of the greatest buys of all time, competition is startin to heat up! REO's are entering escrow in as little as a week! that's breakneck speed. Like the one mentioned above, it's in escrow, and took 4 days to get there. Another great asset with the Short Sales is that they're being submitted to the lender, The lender finally gets back an answer after dragging their feet and passing the buck, and the buyer can't qualify! So what you're left with, is a property that the bank already knows what they will take for it. All you do is swoop in there and snatch it up.